Before that, I hadn’t known someone could perish from pain alone. Since then, I have learned it to be true, but learned the opposite as well. That stubborn life can cling to a person, even when they are in such pain that they wish they would die.
Aunt Gertrude murmured a prayer and told me to return to my tasks. A few moments later, the church door opened and closed against a sharp winter wind and Alexander Hamilton strode past me.
“Dr. Cochran,” Hamilton said from close enough that I could hear the men’s conversation. “We’re suffering a nearly complete depletion of medicinal supplies and His Excellency will need a much fuller accounting of your request.”
My uncle stood rinsing his hands in a bucket. “As explained in our letter, at present, the patients bed down together. Pox victims next to amputees, pneumonia sufferers cough on boys with dysentery, and so on. We ought to separate them, and to do that we need more hospitals.”
“That I understand, sir,” Hamilton said. “But I’m still left bewildered as to why you should need gunpowder.”
Though I didn’t know it then, more than any of Washington’s other aides-de-camp, Hamilton was an all-seeing eye over each munition and every last kernel of corn. And he looked aghast when my uncle explained that he wanted to burn precious gunpowder to purify putrid air.
I thought the willingness of our doctors to experiment was laudatory, but Hamilton’s fingers flicked in annoyance. “The general finds the application for gunpowder unusual and doesn’t think it proper to authorize it.”
I was startled by the impression that Hamilton was speaking for George Washington without asking. As if he were empowered to do so! My uncle looked as if he might argue, but was too weary. “Perhaps we might discuss this later, Colonel.”
“I cannot imagine the answer will change,” Hamilton said, with great officiousness. “But I don’t wish to keep you from your work.” With that, he turned to go, quite nearly stumbling over me where I crouched to tend a patient. “Miss Schuyler? I didn’t expect to see you . . . I’m astonished to find you . . . here.”
Rising to my feet with a pail of vinegar water, I said, “Surely you know Dr. Cochran is my uncle.”
Hamilton’s gaze traveled the length of me, as if to be sure the girl he’d last seen in a brocaded gown could be the same one now before him in a nurse’s apron. “Of course. But I didn’t realize . . . most belles could not withstand these sights and indelicate smells.”
I was not, of course, immune to the putrid perfume of sweat, vomit, urine, and blood, but my discomfort hardly mattered. “I’m bothered more by the suffering than the smell.”
Hamilton nodded. “Another statement that serves as poor proof against your sainthood.”
I smiled. “Then my aunt must also be a saint. And Mrs. Washington, who tends the soldiers sometimes, too. How can I do less, if God has given me the capacity?”
He returned my smile, and his gaze lingered on my face. “Far be it from me to question God. I bid you good day, Miss Schuyler.”
“To you as well,” I replied, watching him go.
But he’d only marched five steps before he stopped, paused, then turned back. “I neglected to mention that another storm may be coming. If so, you won’t want to be caught here after dusk. I’d be happy to escort you and save your aunt and uncle the trouble of conveying you home.”
It wouldn’t save them any trouble at all, but there was something about the way he’d debated making the offer that intrigued me, even though it could be nothing but a flimsy pretext to pay call upon Kitty. But I had completed the chores my aunt set for me and thought that perhaps I could use the opportunity to speak on my uncle’s behalf.
And, in truth, I wanted to go with him.
So I washed, retrieved my gloves, and allowed him to hold the door for me as we left the church. “Colonel Hamilton, are you certain His Excellency would deny Dr. Cochran’s request?” I asked as we stepped outside and walked together down the snowy lane.
Hamilton seemed amused that I might question him. “I know your uncle to be an excellent and learned physician. But I also studied medicine at King’s College, before the war. And when I explain my reservations about the safety of burning gunpowder in a wooden church, and remind General Washington of the scarcity of our resources, I’m sure he’ll see the absurdity of it.”
“If you’ve studied medicine, Colonel, then you should know that smoke smudging is an old and revered medicine. I’ve seen it practiced by the Iroquois as a cleansing ritual, albeit not with gunpowder.”